US BEFORE ANYONE ELSE BY SOPHIA T. BERNARD (KISS THE RAIN ANTHOLOGY)

BLURB

Six years ago, during the rainy season, she lost her father.

Two years ago, during another rainy season, she lost her daughter.

This rainy season, in the midst of the constant downpour in July, Adanna Chima-Lawson is terrified of another loss. While the relentless rains flood her yard and henhouses, she is more concerned about losing her husband.

Is their love strong enough to keep them together after the loss of their only child?

ONE

It was July. The rainy season was at its dreariest and would persist in that state until the end of August.

Quivering from the cold inside her hooded raincoat, Adanna Chima-Lawson stared at the grim grey clouds. It drizzled now, but there was promise of a downpour that could outmatch its display in the last two days.

Willing the clouds to clear and allow a peek of sunlight wasn’t a power she possessed, so she opened the door and stepped into the coop.

Ninety-five hens clucked and trilled in welcome, some crowding her in the hope for food. The absence of the bucket she used in dishing out feed soon gave them the hint to return as they were.

Her heart plummeted in dismay at the scatter of feathers on the floor covered with sawdust. More of the hens were moulting. Too early for them to shed their feathers, she thought, alarm skittering through her. They were thirty-four—no, thirty-five weeks old and four months into laying. They didn’t make it to their peak before nose-diving due to the wet weather.

The production rate barely handled their feeding. If it dropped lower, or halted due to the moulting, she was in trouble.

She’d sunk a hefty portion of her savings into the farm. Inspired by the henhouses her father built and his success story as a farmer, it seemed wise to renovate the buildings and acquire two hundred laying hens.

The loss of eleven of them hadn’t even dampened her spirit.

“I was charmed by the myth farming breathed in my blood,” she muttered, wishing the clucking hens would reassure her.

She didn’t count on an unstable market ruled by recurrent increase in prices of feed. Or that they could moult any time before their sixty-fifth week.

Or that the relentless rains would pose a threat to her farm.

Constant moisture in the air left the sawdust in the same state. Moist and unable to dry. Wood shavings would serve her better, but they were harder to get.

Regrets didn’t suit her, and she shed the unwelcome weight with a long exhalation. Taking down the basket she hung on a nail, she collected available eggs from the nesting boxes, repeating the process at the other coop.

She switched on the rechargeable lamps and pulled down the removable wall made out of tarpaulin to keep off the rains.

Back in the house, she lit more lamps, crated the eggs, and sat down to an early dinner.

It was not yet seven, so going to bed was out of the question. Disinclined to have the television on, she had not powered up the generator for days when electricity was absent.

She wasn’t keen on reading a novel, either. Stretching out on the sofa, she tuned her ears to the pitter-patter of raindrops on the roof.

“I am so lonely without him, Papa,” she whispered, wishing right then for Jude.

The painted portrait of her father on the light yellow wall offered no response. The dead did not speak.

What if the dead did not have to die? Her baby would not have two years ago.

It was the tail end of June. She died on the twenty-eighth. It rained that day, like it did when her father died in mid-May four years earlier.

Her life, it seemed, had become a repetitive tale of misfortune. She lost her father, her child, and soon she would lose her husband.

“I miss him. But I don’t know how to be with him anymore.”

She stared at her father’s image, heart aching, tears leaking from her eyes.

TWO

Adanna couldn’t say which woke her, the whirling wind or the spraying water chilling her face.

Most likely the latter.

She launched out of the sofa, ran around to push it and other chairs out of harm’s way. The roof was leaking.

Six months after spending one point five million plus on re-roofing, and a section of the roof leaked. He’d carried out repairs too, the darned roofer she’d hired for the job. While the spots on the inside corridor, kitchen and bathroom didn’t leak anymore, the living room still did.

She would have him up there fixing the half-hearted job he’d done if it wasn’t mean to make that demand in this awful weather. A roaring gale slashed against the roof and windows, jolting her enough to shriek.

Windy rain.

Swinging into action, she grabbed a torchlight and raced out to the backyard. Pelting showers flew through the iron protector at her.

Cursing and praying at the same time, she ran back inside to grab her raincoat. It would probably do her no good, but that thought occurred after the action.

Armed with two torchlights and battered by the heavy downpour she’d anticipated, she stared at the one thing she hadn’t expected to happen.

One side of the tarpaulin had detached from the wood holding it secure. Now the winds sent water into the unprotected coop with joyful abandon.

That wasn’t the worst thing. She had a mini flood in her yard and the level of water swirled above the bottom of the zinc doors.

She had meant to erect a concrete slab around the doors, but thought to do it during the dry season.

It had to be the gutters. The poorly built drainage her well-meaning but not-so bright neighbour paid inexperienced constructors to dig.

“Darn him!”

But cursing and panicking would serve no purpose. She got into her farm boots, drowned the fear of ringworms and the likes, and waded through the rush of muddy water.

At the wall fence, she battled with the pile of dirt blocking the water outlet. It was a futile effort with the tumbling rain and churning puddle.

Soaked to the skin despite the coat, she gave up and wondered if she could re-attach the tarp.

First, she needed the generator to turn on the security lights. But the battery only groaned and whined, paying her back for ignoring the counsel to regularly charge it.

She tried the recoil starter. Sadly, infrequent usage appeared to have left the pull cord limp. Stuck with her torchlights, frantic and sure she was crying, she detoured to the henhouses. The second one only had minimal water seeping in through the door, but the first was building up a nice pool.

The hens were distressed. Threatened and desperate to survive, they huddled together as much as they could atop the nesting boxes, feathers raised as buffers. Most squawked and chirped, calling out for help in high-pitched tones.

Had they been broilers, she would bet anything the lot of them would be dead in a matter of days. Layers possessed stronger survival instincts and would live, but at the cost of laying.

With not much else she could do, she collected empty feed bags and strung them to the stainless steel net as a shield against the rain.

Inside the house, she fixed basins under the dripping ceilings, dried herself and took her phone.

There was no signal. Go figure.

Then again, who would she call?

Jude, she thought. If she could get to him, he would come running. It wouldn’t matter that it was pouring down in fury. Unfortunately, she had lost her right to call on him. They were getting a divorce, and that singular fact meant they ceased to be each other’s priority.

Was she prepared for another loss?

Divorce, not death, was taking away the man she loved, and because she wanted it. Or she was half certain she wanted it, Adanna amended, checking the time and sighing when her phone displayed 9:20 p.m.

A long, wet night ahead of her. She might as well go to bed. Under the warm blanket, she pondered on Jude’s reply when she told him about the divorce yesterday.

“Not a matter to discuss over the phone, Ada.”

The plan wasn’t to tell him over the phone. She had wanted to wait until she could meet with him one-on-one before bringing it up. But once she made up her mind, she’d been restless with nerves and second-guessing her decision. It was easier to put it out there before all courage deserted her.

The sudden loud bang on the gate startled a curse out of her.

“What the heck?”

If the vile-tempered weather didn’t give her a heart attack, someone was intent on doing it.

Who was it—a neighbour? And what did they want at this hour and under this downpour?

No, she was not getting out of bed and getting wet again until morning. Whoever it was and whatever they wanted, they would have to wait.

Unless it was an emergency and someone was hurt.

Visions of bleeding limbs, cuts and bruises sent her out of bed despite her griping mutters. She donned the dry coat in her bathroom, since she’d abandoned the other outside.

Wincing at having to brave the muddy water again, she slugged to the gate and demanded in as high a voice as she could manage, “Who is it?”

“Jude.”

What in the world?

Inserting the key, she unlocked the pedestrian steel door to let him in. He was drenched, right from his head to his feet.

“What are you doing here at this hour?”

“We need to talk.”

Oh, God. It was his resolute voice and on a night she would rather not fight.

THREE

It was nearly ten on a viciously rainy night, and he stood at her gate, sodden and dripping wet, and managed to look fiercely determined.

He made her want to forget everything else and throw herself against him. He’d come when she was feeling alone, when she’d wished she could call him to the rescue.

Wrapping her arms around her front, to hold herself in check, Adanna asked, “Does that talk have to be tonight?”

“Yes. I was in Benin when you called yesterday and couldn’t leave until past six today. It was a slow drive down with the downpour.”

“It was a risky, unnecessary thing to do.”

“I disagree.” He pointed at the gate. “Open, so I can drive in the car.”

Swallowing a sigh, and the futile urge to argue, she unlocked the driveway gate, and he drove inside, parking his car right behind hers in the garage. As they had not shared a room in a long while, because she’d craved the distance, she settled him in the room next to hers and furnished him with towels to dry off. Thankfully, he brought along a bag, which eliminated the trouble of what to wear when he ditched his wet clothes.

He emerged from the room, dressed in the blue striped pyjamas she bought him a month before moving out. Something about seeing him in them made her feel warm.

“How are you?” he asked. Then he motioned to the basins with a jerk of his head. “Anywhere else leaking?”

It was like him to go from one subject to another without missing a beat. That habit alternately exasperated and made her love him more.

Currently, the former was the case as she sighed. “No. But I have a major mess outside. The tarpaulin tore off and water is getting into the coop. The shin-deep flood you encountered out front goes all the way to the back and is seeping into both coops.”

“The outlet is blocked,” he guessed rightly. “I have to deal with it immediately.”

I, not we. That, too, had occasions when it irritated her, but not in the present situation. The take-charge move worked for her. She’d had her fill of wet and cold for one day.

“Do you have fuel in the house?” Without unbuttoning it, he dragged off the pyjama shirt.

She followed him into his room, shamelessly watching him. He was still her husband.

“Yes. But the gen won’t start.”

“I’ll start it.”

Back in his wet trousers, no shirt on, he made his way alone to the backyard. Since he insisted on assisting at the farm when he visited, he had a pair of rubber boots to use.

The previously unresponsive cord cooperated on his third pull, blending the hum of the generator with the hissing of sweeping rain. Within minutes, he unblocked the outlet, restoring the outflow of water.

Then he jerked the ladder to the coop, climbed on and proceeded to put the tarp wall back in place.

Adanna watched him from the veranda, hands stuck in the pockets of her coat and her heart beating a little faster as they did whenever he was near.

She met him on a rainy day in Asaba twelve years ago. She’d stepped out of a supermarket, hoping to catch a taxi quickly, and he’d ducked under her umbrella and took over the handle. He was taller and should hold it, he had said with a smile.

If the easy smile hadn’t charmed her, the good-looking face with a stubble beard did the trick. It turned out they were both civil servants and shared a love for books, board games, and discovering new eateries every month.

Eleven years they had been married, tried for a child for seven of those years, had one and lost her.

If such a thing truly existed, he was the love of her life. But she left him to move back to Ogwashi-Uku eight months ago.

She wanted the divorce for his sake.

For hers as well, Adanna admitted, and turned to enter the house. She heated water on the gas cooker for his bath and put together a light meal for him.

“I’m glad you came,” she said when they sat together on the sofa. “The situation would have been harder to manage by morning.”

He had turned off the generator and only one lamp illuminated the room. It was somewhere around eleven p.m. and the rain had drizzled down to light showers.

It would pick up again at will.

“I came for you. I’ve left you too long alone, it seems. How can you talk of a divorce?”

They faced each other, the middle seat vacant between them. Her eyes drank him in, scanning to make sure he was well, had not lost weight and was not suffering from her absence.

At forty-six, his beards were fuller, greyer, adding the zaddy sexiness to his good looks.

Careful not to let herself react to him, she answered his question. “How can I not? There’s nothing left for us. I am forty-three and won’t go through it again. It’s not even about age, in all honesty.”

It was the trauma of trying, hoping, and praying for a child. It was the haunting ache when her period came after being late again. It was the tests and medications, treatments and their toll on her.

On him.

“I want a divorce, Jude. There’s nothing left in this marriage for us.”

“There is you and me left in this marriage. Does that not count because she is gone?”

She was gone. That was the heart of the trouble between them, wasn’t it? Their child was gone.

“I don’t know what counts or not with her gone. I only know I can’t go through it all again.” Aching in more places than her heart, she stood. “We should go to bed. It’s late and we’re tired.”

Imitating her, he rose. “We need to talk, Ada.”

“Agreed. Tomorrow. Goodnight.”

“Don’t walk away when we’re talking, Ada.”

She shut her eyes against the steely edge in his voice. “I can’t do it tonight, Jude.”

“Then we’ll do it tomorrow, as you said.” He crossed the room and stood in front of her. “I am unprepared and unwilling to lose you. You’re my wife and nothing will change that.”

The thing was, something had changed in the last eight months, she thought as she curled up under the blanket. They were no longer intimate. While she remained his wife in name, she wasn’t in any other way.

Did it not mean that the bond between them wasn’t unbreakable?

FOUR

The clouds were black with no glimpse of light the next morning, casting shadows of gloom and more wetness.

What her father called the moody temper of July.

She met Jude unlocking the back door, dressed in trousers he’d butchered into shorts and the white T-shirt he’d worn under his shirt the day before.

“Good morning.” His gaze gentled as it took her in. “No need to come out with me. I can handle it alone.”

“Yeah, you’re Super Jude, I know. We will handle it faster together.” She fetched two buckets, bowls for scooping and mops. “It would help if we had the generator on. The rechargeable lamps aren’t as bright anymore.”

He hesitated, and she knew he debated whether to insist on his argument or not. “I’ll turn it on,” he said finally. “You might want to retrieve your raincoat.”

“It’s useless. The shower cap suffices.”

She half regretted her bravado when the torrents hit her with brutal slaps and had her drenched before she made it into the coop. It was a good thing she hadn’t bothered with anything but tights and a tank top.

For the next two hours, they worked amid light talks, passing laughter and soothing silence. It was like any other Saturday designated to house cleaning when they still shared a home. They handled cleaning up as they did everything else in their lives, together and as one heart and mind.

Everything except the loss of their child.

It was she who pulled away, adding distance when his presence aggravated the pain. Now she was terrified to go back to him. Ergo, the demand for a divorce.

When he insisted on handling the layering of sawdust on the floors, she left him to it and returned to the house. She had a shower, made breakfast and waited for him to join her before they ate.

“I’m sorry about the carpenter,” he said while they relaxed on the front veranda. “He did such a poor job.”

“The fact you recommended him doesn’t make you responsible for that poor job.”

“Maybe not. I’ll have Ezekiel come from Asaba to fix the leakages.”

“No need for Ezekiel. I paid the man to do a job, and he must do it right. He fixed the other leaks, but somehow missed these. Let him finish what he started.”

“As you wish.”

At peace with the calm acquiescence, Adanna stared through the protector. Ripples formed and faded on the streaming water. The muddiness was gone, leaving the pool clear. She’d had to construct a pathway to redirect the water when the issue with the overflowing gutters started last year. Without it, the plants growing along the fence and the grasses would suffer the brunt of damage.

She glanced at Jude and realised that without them speaking of the loss that drew them apart, he would never understand her reason for wanting a divorce. If truth be told, she had avoided the subject for too long. They both had.

“We had her for so little time, but I miss her like I knew her all my life,” she said, and was not surprised to hear the echo of pain in her voice.

“I guess that’s how it feels when you lose a part of you. You will always miss it.”

Their daughter was that, a part of them. Jude had let her choose her name, and she’d gone for Chinyelum. Two failed IVFs, and then she came, and Adanna believed her to be a miracle.

A gift from God.

“Do you ever wonder if we could have done more to save her? If, maybe, I wasn’t attentive enough to her?”

“Adanna.” The quiet call, so familiar, drew her gaze to him. “You were not a careless mother. She was sick and didn’t make it. It was not your fault or mine.”

A combination of complicated malaria and respiratory tract infection. Her seven-month-old immune system couldn’t combat the attack. But why did she have to fall sick at all?

“Why did He give her to us only to take her back?”

“I am teaching myself not to question God. It hurts less that way. It’s easier to hold on to my faith.” The makings of a smile touched his face. “For a time, there was always hard words between us. Praying was an occasion to apportion blame until it became impossible to do.”

Jude loved to pray. There was a time she envied the ease of his faith. He thought of God like a child would his mother, a constant, immovable presence. She’d loved that about him, the man with a simple, childlike faith.

“I wasn’t aware you struggled with your faith. You still knelt in prayer. You still invited us to do so.”

“Those times I knelt, I either raged at Him or stayed silent, hate in my heart.”

“I didn’t notice your struggles. Or much of your pain. That had to be part of the reasons we drew apart.”

“It went both ways, didn’t it? I didn’t see much of yours, either.”

Loss and grief broke their bond. A chasm grew between them, widening until they couldn’t reach out and touch each other.

Entranced by the light stream of water trailing down the path towards the back, Adanna wondered why she didn’t lean on him. Their love was always a sure thing. A soothing warmth and a wall of defence.

“I didn’t blame you. Maybe you thought I did, but that was never the case. How could I blame you for the loss of our child?”

“You blamed yourself. Did you, Jude?”

“It’s not like I took responsibility for her death. But it was one more suffering you had to endure while sharing a life with me. I felt I couldn’t make you happy for long. I couldn’t make you pregnant the natural way. It was hard through scientific methods, and when finally, we had a child, we lost her. All of that could have been different with another man.”

“I was scared you blamed me and kept the thought hidden in your heart. Instead, you bore the burden of guilt. Oh, Jude, I wish we talked. Why couldn’t we when it used to be the simplest thing for us?”

“My guess is it was our first experience suffering heartbreak at the same time. We were both too burdened to notice the weight on the other person. We were possibly terrified of hurting each other more.” Emotions swam in his eyes. “I was terrified I wouldn’t be able to comfort you.”

“You wouldn’t have.” Not then. “I didn’t want to be comforted. I wanted—or maybe needed–to wallow in that grief. I could tell, Jude. I could tell. She was our only chance. She made me a mother. Without her, I would never be again.”

He moved, leaving his seat to squat in front of her. Without a word, he wrapped his arms around her before she could resist and held her so tightly against him.

Like she desperately needed him to, then and now.

Adanna sighed, shut her eyes, and let herself go. Tears came in hot torrents. As if to lend moral support, the dark clouds wept with her in spitting splatters.

It was the first time they would mourn their daughter as a couple.

FIVE

He held her that way, his knees on the floor, her body plastered against his until her sobbing subsided.

Uncannily light-hearted, she offered a smile. “We should go in. We’re starting to get wet.”

He cast a glance outside. “Yeah, let’s do that.”

“Or do you want to brave it and drive back to Asaba?”

“No. I don’t want to go.”

Relief washed over her. “I’m glad. The weather is unpredictable.”

“It is. That’s not why I’m staying.”

He still could make her pulse race with his steady stare. “I’m convinced divorce is the answer for us, Jude. It’s not just the months we lived apart alone. It’s also the time after Chinyelum passed and we couldn’t connect.”

“Whatever it is, we can get past it. Let’s go in.”

Could they? Adanna mused.

Force of habit put them once more on the sofa, facing each other. Whenever they talked, they never did so with too much space between them.

“I miss you.”

She inhaled sharply, smoothing a hand over the flutters in her stomach. “It doesn’t help for us to get emotional.”

Irritation fired up his gaze. “How do you propose we refrain from getting emotional when our emotions are involved? I find it hard to move on from you.”

“It’s not easy, I know, but it’s what we have to do.”

“No, it’s not what we have to do. It is what you want us to do.” He transferred to the middle seat, drawing her close with a single pull. “I don’t want a divorce, Adanna. You’re still the woman I love.”

“Staying married will bring us nothing but pain.” Such a temptation to recline against him, to forgo every need to protest. “We drifted apart, Jude. We were two strangers living together until I moved out.”

“We were grieving and didn’t know how to do it together. It’s why I conceded when you suggested a separation. I thought it would help us. Time away from each other to heal. We’re better now—”

“I am not. I still miss her.”

“We will always miss her, Ada. It doesn’t mean we have to lose each other.”

When they started their lives together, she never thought she would lose him. For sure, it was going to happen when they were old and way down in their eighties, but not before. Then Chinyelum died, and it felt like it didn’t matter if she lost him as well. She’d thought nothing else mattered at the time.

But he was telling her that they matter. That she didn’t have to lose him.

“I can’t get pregnant again. I won’t attempt it. The age factor is not solely the problem. There’s the emotional strain. Waiting, hoping—panicking and struggling not to. The physical and mental stress. The risk to the child. I made it clear, Jude. I refuse to go through it ever again.”

That third IVF was her last try. The miracle she’d hoped would bless their lives until old age.

“You won’t. We can adopt.”

“A different set of strain and stress.” The idea continued to be unwelcome. “You don’t have to let the dream to be a father go for my sake. With me out of your way, you can remarry and have children.”

“How can you say things like that?” Hurt glazed his eyes. “You’re not in my way. You’re in my life, where I want you to be.”

“Oh, Jude.” It was so easy to do, to stroke his face, to allow a smile. “You’re good at knowing what to say, aren’t you?”

“I’ve lost my touch lately, it appears.” He pressed her palm to his cheek. “How can divorce be the answer when our love still runs deep?”

She read the question in his eyes, asking her if she didn’t love him anymore. She did. A part of her heart would belong to him all her life.

“Love didn’t take away the pain, the aches and the bitterness. It didn’t fill the emptiness. Jude, it won’t erase the want for a child. You will want a child of your own.”

“I don’t deny the desire for a child. I want it, with you.”

If Chinyelum had lived, they would have been content with her. She knew that much about him. Chinyelum didn’t, and adoption was not a step Adanna was willing to take, so letting him go was the answer.

She freed her hand from his clasp, because her body had awakened to the desire for him. “You can’t have it with me. Accept it.”

“Accept it? No.” He punctuated the denial with a punch on his thigh and eased back to his previous seat. “I won’t accept it, Ada. Don’t ask me to accept losing the woman I love.”

With the warmth of his nearness gone, cold air fanned her skin, reminding her of the sweater she’d opted not to wear over her sleeveless dress.

Wanting his attention on her had outmatched self-care at the time.

“I will make us tea. It’s getting colder.”

She left him in the living room and went into the kitchen. It felt good to add another teabag in the pot and an extra cup on the tray. He would ask for it, so she served biscuits from the jar she kept in the provisions’ cabinet.

Two cubes of sugar for him, one for her. Lots of milk for both of them. She had missed tea time with him on cold days. Or simply on days when they craved it.

“You know what I never considered when I knew you were the woman I wanted in my life?”

The space was gone again between them. He was right next to her, making her warmer than the hot tea did.

“What?”

“A child. Or children. There was no thought in that direction.”

“That is because we expect it to happen naturally.”

“No. That is because you were what I wanted most. You’re still what I want the most. Months apart has not changed the fact. A lifetime without a child won’t change it.”

“You can’t know that.”

“I know it, because I’ve been alone without you and slowly dying. I already had the plan to come for you before your call. It’s become unbearable staying away from you. I need you in my life, Ada. I love you.”

“I need to collect eggs and lock up the coops.”

“Darn it, Adanna.”

She winced at the frustration in his voice. “I’ll be back.”

She escaped, and thanked God that he didn’t follow her.

SIX

He’d never found it difficult to tell her of his feelings. It was never hard to read the sincerity of his words in his gaze.

They’d been dating for only two months and a week when he confessed he was falling in love with her. Right on the street, as they walked away from a bole joint where she’d paid for his favourite roasted plantain and fried fish sauce.

Love messages in place of love letters were constant. Whispers in her ear when they sat in the midst of people, love songs dedicated to her on radio shows. Or sung in his mostly off-key voice.

He loved her and she was never in doubt.

She loved him in return; and for that love, his needs came before hers. He would be a father, if she had to break his heart to make that dream come true for him.

Still not ready to face him, she escaped into the bathroom, inventing the excuse of food poisoning.

His glare told her he didn’t believe her.

Sitting on the toilet seat and staring at the white marble wall, she asked herself if this was what she’d wanted. For him to fight for her, to convince her that he loved her and wanted her more than his desire for a child.

Could he be happy by her side when that blessing would never be theirs to share?

“Ada, seriously, you think I don’t know you’re sitting there, trying to think up more reasons to tell me no?”

Darn him, he was standing right outside the door.

“Do you also know how much I hate to be hounded? Give me some privacy. I will join you in a bit.”

Adanna listened for his retreating steps before rising to wash her hands, and walked out to join him in the living room.

“I knew you wouldn’t concede to the divorce without a fight,” she said, a faint smile on her face.

“I refuse to concede to it at all.”

“Because you love me.”

He nodded. “Because I love you.”

“It’s the same for me. I love you. Loving you, I want you to have your heart’s desire. You wanted so much to be a father.”

“Yes.” He drew her into his lap. “We will wait until you’re ready for adoption.”

Heat from him poured into her. “What if I’m never ready?”

“So be it. We will live without a child.”

“I can’t ask that of you, Jude.”

“You don’t ask it of me. I ask it of myself. I can’t and won’t live without you.”

“You have been living without me.”

“It’s been hell.” He rubbed his cheek along hers, his beard tickling her skin. “Let’s put an end to it and come back together.”

Longing speared her. She’d missed its existence and her consciousness of it.

“I will die of guilt depriving you of a child.”

“You gave me a child, Ada. We had a child.”

“It doesn’t count when she is no more.”

“Count for whom? This concerns no one but the two of us.”

“Fine. Let’s say that is true. Do you know how hard it will be…? How hard it already is knowing how much you want a child, and we have none together?”

A frown drew a mild storm across his face. “Let me ask you. If the reverse was the case and I couldn’t give you a child, would you like it if I left you?”

Turning the table, a tactic he excelled at.

“That’s not the situation, is it?”

“Don’t avoid the question. Tell me, if I were making this magnanimous sacrifice and setting you free to have children with another man, how would you feel? Would you think I did it out of love? Would you applaud me for choosing to prove my love for you that way?”

“Darn. I keep forgetting you like to fight dirty.” She unlocked his arms around her and got up.

“So, this is me fighting dirty.”

“Yes,” she snapped. “This is fighting dirty. Something you’re great at. I am making this sacrifice for you. Why should you not be a father if you can?”

“My child died and my wife and I can’t have any more children. That’s why, Adanna. I don’t want children with another woman, I want them with you.”

“I can’t have them. Why are we going around in circles?”

“If you can’t have them, I can’t have them. You and me, we’re a unit. We are one. Don’t you get it?”

“Will you think that years from now when we’re old and alone?”

“My God, why do you have so little faith in me?” He stared at her in shock. “When did it happen, and I didn’t notice? Or has it always been that you don’t trust me?”

He was doing it again, using her words against her.

“It’s not that I don’t trust you. The fact is people change as time passes. People have regrets. I don’t want to be something you regret.”

“Take that back.” He launched to his feet and grabbed her arms. “Take it back that you will ever be something I’ll regret. I have done nothing to make you believe that. I have loved you and been true to you. I have shown you my heart and who I am. You don’t get to doubt me without justification.”

The shimmer of tears behind his fury deflated her. “I am sorry. It’s true, you’ve given me no reason to doubt you. But I am so scared, Jude. I can’t forget how excitedly you talked about having our two children. Being a dad was a dream for you. You wanted to be a dad more than I wanted to be a mum. You can still have that chance, that’s all I’m saying.”

“I was a dad, Ada. While she was inside you, I was a dad. For the seven months we had her, I was a dad. I am one even with her gone.” His gaze softened, the tears still there. “She’s gone, but we will always be her parents.”

They would always be Chinyelum’s parents. Relief and hope stirred as the thought settled in her heart.

She looked at her daughter’s father. The man she loved, now and always. “There’s such freedom in not having to worry if I’m hurting you or not.”

“Can I offer you the assurance that you don’t have to worry? I am happy with you.”

“We used to be so happy.”

She remembered. She missed those days. She wanted them again.

“We are now. Let me show you.”

He curved his head, gently he kissed her.

SEVEN

Not gently, Adanna decided, moving to meet his body when his hands circled her waist. When he kissed her, it was easy, without an effort to seduce or charm, or possess. He gave in to a need, pure and simple. His need for her.

His mouth wanting hers. His tongue seeking hers. His emotions surrendering to her, in a moan, the needy groan, his body hardening, pressing into hers.

She’d missed him in this way. The lover who could inflame her entire being with desire. The taste of his mouth, different with each moment, yet so familiar. The hard plane of his body, lean and long, sculpted with more muscles than fat.

She could yield to him, and she did, her body going limp, asking him to take more of her. She wanted him, naked flesh against hers, turgid flesh inside her.

How had she survived without him inside her?

How did he survive?

A cold line ran down her back, easing her away from the kiss. “There hasn’t been anyone, has there?”

One after the other, his hands fell off her as he stiffened. “What do you mean?”

“Another woman in your bed.” In his life, more importantly.

“You left me. You refused me to touch you whenever I visited. You put an end to my visits.”

The accusation in his voice put her back up. “You took a lover based on that?”

“Do you not think those are sufficient reasons?”

No, she didn’t.

She was not oblivious of the fact that he had needs. Or that denying them held risks. But it was him, and she’d believed she knew him. She’d trusted him.

A part of her had been convinced that if he met someone, he would pursue the termination of their marriage contract. He would not consent to infidelity. That was the man Jude Lawson was.

“How could you?” Pain cut her heart.

“Did you not do the same?”

“Of course, I did not.”

How dare he doubt her? Was he trying to justify himself?

He stuck his hands in his pockets, rocked on his feet. “Why not?”

“Don’t you insult me, Jude. You know who I am—”

“But you can insult me, not knowing who I am, right?”

She saw it then, the hurt in his eyes. “You said it, I left. It’s been eight months, and we were not intimate in the last couple of weeks before that.”

“What of it? I can be celibate. Being a man doesn’t make me any less capable of abstaining.”

“No, it doesn’t.” She went to him. “Forgive me. It is not a lack of trust. I was jealous for an instant, that’s all. You were mine from the second we committed to each other.”

“I was yours from the second we met. I will always be.” Clutching the small of her back, he jerked her close. “Let me show you that, too.”

He kissed her, mouth firm, strokes tender, and the feel of him familiar. The taste of him, equally so.

Both drew her in—what she knew, what she remembered, and what she would always crave. She deepened the kiss, pushing forward her hips to seek him. The part of him she’d missed while suppressing the emotion teased her belly with its hardening length.

Lust exploded, all over her and straight to her core. He had that magical touch, a kiss, a stroke of his finger, and he released feral need inside her. They never had need for prolonged foreplay, unless they were in the mood to play.

She wasn’t right then.

Ending the kiss, she took him with her to her room. Then she went back into his arms. Words were rarely necessary, they were less so when all she wanted was to feel, to remember, to maybe recover what was lost.

This one thing, if she couldn’t the other.

His kisses trailed from her mouth to her jaw, and to her neck. She hadn’t bothered with a bra, so when he disposed of her dress, his mouth easily closed over a nipple.

Frantic with need, she palmed his length through his trousers. He reacted by stretching her out on the bed and ploughing two of his fingers into her.

Tension built as his thumb circled her nub, her muscles tightening. Desperate for him, she pushed up to her knees to free him off his clothes.

He leaned back to help her finish the job and returned between her legs, his intense gaze holding hers. When he thrust into her, the breath whooshed out of her, a sigh of relief.

A gasp of pleasure.

He pushed in until he filled and owned her. Owning him as he did her, she wrapped her legs around him, moving with him, gunning for the same satisfaction he sought.

EIGHT

Why did she think she could let him go?

No, she never thought that. What she thought was that she had to let him go.

“I don’t want to stand in your way,” Adanna said softly. “That’s the truth.”

They lay under her blanket, protected from the cold, listening to the lilting whispers of raindrops.

“You’re not in my way, Ada. Don’t let me lose you, too.”

She turned her head to face him at the plea. He’d had to lose her along with their child, why was she not conscious of that?

“It’s what happened, isn’t it? We lost her and lost each other.” Her vision blurred. “It seemed so much easier at the time to drift away from you. I didn’t have to deal with your pain, just mine. On the other hand, without you, I might stop wishing for a child. I miss it, being a mother.”

“I miss not having her with us.” He brushed away her tears. “I miss not having you. I miss our life together.”

Doubt threatened the hope growing in her heart.

“Your mother expects grandchildren from you.”

“My mother has grandchildren from her other children.”

“It doesn’t stop her from wanting yours. She is worried, and that’s a burden on me.”

“She won’t—”

“No, she won’t complain or castigate me. On the contrary, she was supportive with her kind words and many prayers. But I feel her worry, I sense her panic. Not hers alone, the rest of your family’s. That is a load I am no longer willing to bear.”

“It is one I don’t want you to bear, either. I assure you, the only ones who matter in this case are you and I, not them. You’re most important to me, not them. Come back to me.”

Come back to him.

Go back to the home they built together, to the life they shared, to the dreams they had.

Come back to him—and leave all of this behind?

“I can’t close the farm and walk away just like that, Jude.”

“No, that would be financial suicide and not wise. What I ask is that you let the idea of a divorce go and tell me you want us together again. We will work through the processes of it, one step at a time. If you like, we could go for counselling.”

“Counselling? Why?”

“Maybe to talk through our grief and our separation. I will do whatever you want. All I want is to have you back in my life.”

“Me here, you at Asaba. Is that wise?”

“I can commute. Days when that is impossible, it could be like us dating. We will make it work, because you and I always worked.”

“I think I knew you would say no. I think I wanted you to fight for me, for us.”

“Fight with me for us. There was us before anyone else. There would be us without them. Chinyelum mattered, but you mattered more. That’s the truth. I want to be the same for you.”

A mother’s love was different from the love of a wife. His place in her life did not disappear because Chinyelum ceased to be a part of it.

“I want to make it work again. I want to come back to you. Yes to the counselling. Yes to commuting and dating while married.” She let her smile come, felt it all the way to her heart. “Stay the rest of the weekend. You packed a bag, after all.”

“I packed a bag for my trip to Benin. But I had no plans to go anywhere.” He gathered her into his arms. “I love you.”

Contentment sluiced through her. It had been too long since she recognised it. She did not know she was waiting for it, wishing for its return.

“I can’t make any promises. Maybe as we heal, I will find it easier to consider adoption.”

“Whatever you want, as long as I have you.”

“You have me. I love you.” Desire thrummed as their naked bodies stirred. “You can have me now again.”

“I can. I will.

And he did.

AUTHOR’S BIO DATA

Theo Uchendi David-West is the author behind the pen names, TM David-West and Sophia T. Bernard. She is a romance fiction writer who likes to delve into other genres such as Fantasy and Mystery.

When not writing stories, she tinkers with book cover designs, blogs at lifeandspices.com, and lives a life that involves a lot of romance novels, movies, K-Dramas, telenovelas, and other homo sapiens.